Get shredded in six weeks! The problem with extreme male body transformations

Mens Health magazine has transformed many men and its own fortunes by featuring extreme muscle makeovers. But does changing shape fast have a dark side?

In 2004, Mens Health journalist Dan Rookwood walked into his editors office in a funk. The topless beefcakes who appeared on their covers were unrealistic, he had decided. No one actually looked like that not least the staff of what was then the UKs third-biggest-selling mens magazine. His editor smiled. He felt a feature coming on.

Just over a year later, a smirking Rookwood appeared on the March 2006 cover of Mens Health. His biceps were huge, his six-pack extraordinarily well defined. From fat to flat! read the cover line, alongside a picture of a mournful-looking Rookwood, pre-transformation, his belly soft and rounded. It became the biggest-selling Mens Health issue of all time.

The transformation genre of mens magazine cover stories was born. Since then, they have become the bread and butter (or steamed spinach and chicken breast) of these publications. Pick up a copy of Mens Health every six months or so and you will see a topless staffer grinning for the camera, next to the words Get shredded in six weeks! or From scrawny to brawny!

In difficult times for print publishing, Mens Health and its competitors hit upon a monetisable formula. Across the country, podgy dads and harried office workers dreamed of having the perfect physique. Makeover transformations promised the body they longed for typically within eight to 12 weeks.

A cottage industry whirred into action. You can join the Mens Health Transform Club or purchase a copy of the Mens Fitness 12 Week Body Plan. The message is clear: ditch the carbs, start deadlifting and you too can upgrade your dad bod to the crisply defined torso of a Hollywood hunk.

I wanted to prove to the readers that the cover lines we preach at Mens Health are possible, Sansom says. Were normal guys. But how normal? All were given personal trainers and Wards editor allowed him time off work to train.

Cover model transformations are not snake oil they do work, provided you are a staff journalist at a magazine with access to high-end trainers, a sympathetic boss and the time to spend hours meal-prepping protein-based meals.

While the Mens Health cover body may be attainable, most people are not able to maintain the necessary lifestyle once the challenge is over. For me, the diet was not sustainable long term, whereas the training has been, says Rookwood. He is conflicted about his role in creating the genre of cover transformation stories. It was just a bit of fun, Rookwood says. Something to tell the grandkids;, maybe frame in the downstairs loo someday.

The Mens Health team did more than shift magazines: they ushered in a protein-blasted physical aesthetic. In this new paradigm of masculine excellence, anyone can achieve physical perfection if they put in the hours. It is an aspirational narrative, accompanied by a specific vernacular. Men are hench, wammo or tonk. A good swolder never forgets leg day.

The emergence of this physical ideal is linked to the death of lad culture. Magazines are reflectors of society, says Simon Das, a lecturer in journalism at London College of Communication. Magazines such as Nuts and Zoo were out of kilter with the new generation of men coming through. As the lads mags were counted out, health-focused publications absorbed their readerships, with Mens Health overtaking FHMs sales in 2009. Mens Health remains the biggest paid-for magazine in the mens lifestyle sector, with a circulation of 175,683 at the end of 2017.

Mens magazines reflect and reinforce the cultural zeitgeist. Young men today are interested in wellbeing and fitness and looking good, Das says. So this is reflected in the editorial interests of magazines oriented at guys.

Mens magazines alone did not give rise to this new ideal; there were other factors. Gymgoing became democratised, with chains such as PureGym (which opened in 2009) and Fitness4Less (founded in 2010) bringing affordable membership to the masses. The pursuit of fitness accrued social capital, with streaming sites such as YouTube making celebrities of personal trainer Joe Wicks and fitness gurus The Hodgetwins. Some argue that the financial crisis created the gym bro: as traditional routes to success were eroded, men fell back on their bodies as a means of feeling valuable to society. Concurrently, young people stopped drinking as much.

You may think: what is the harm in counting reps on a chest press? But the masculine frame we fetishise today can be as pernicious as the uber-thin supermodels we typically condemn for perpetuating unrealistic body ideals.

As eating disorder services tend to be designed for women, male sufferers can be overlooked. Only one in 10 patients who seek help for eating disorders are men, despite the fact that men are as likely as women to suffer. Clinicians are trained to look for emaciation, despite the fact that many sufferers are not underweight, particularly if they are packing on muscle at the gym. Another complication is that these guys are coming from gyms where there is a no pain, no gain ethos, which means theyre socialised into thinking its OK to forgo important parts of their lives in the service of this muscularity, says Murray. They dont see it as a problem.

My mental state became a complete mess, says Sikdar. The gym and my body seemed to be one place I had some control and was succeeding.

Murray says that men work out to elevate their standing among other men, not women. A compliment from a man is worth more than a compliment from a woman, because males have more credibility in affirming other males.

After a month spent learning muay thai in Thailand, Tom Usher, 30, felt himself change. I wasnt scared of anyone, he muses. When you look chung physically, you feel chung and that confidence translates into how you act around women, but also men. It plays to some kind of physical superiority thing that men like to have over other men, regardless of whether they know about it consciously or not.

Although Murray does not believe the media causes eating disorders, he says it creates the powerful social comparisons that Usher and Sikdar experienced. Exposure to these images gives positive connotations of what it means to be highly muscular for males, he says. This almost always induces a profound body dissatisfaction that results in compensatory efforts to try and increase ones muscularity. Individuals can end up in a dangerous cycle of overexercising and restricted eating.

What makes men die pursuing a cosmetic goal? Being big was what everyone knew Dean for, Wharmbys partner Charlotte Rigby said after his death.

Murray says: You generate this wonderful physique and get lots of compliments and then the fear of not maintaining this physique becomes powerful. It becomes your primary identity. That leads to some of the extreme lengths these guys go to.

Of course, not everyone who tries to get shredded becomes unhealthy. Most will get in shape for a while, then slip back. Gym memberships go unused. Magazine subscriptions expire. Perhaps it will not all be for nothing: they will eat more healthily or exercise more often.

After his cover shoot, Ward went on holiday with his girlfriend. It was nice being on the beach and not feeling self-conscious about his body. But life got in the way of training. He is unaffected by the loss of his former physique. I feel good about myself sitting on the beach now with my dog, even if Im a bit fat.

Sansom has put on a fair bit of weight since his cover shoot. Like Ward, he is relaxed about it. Browsing WH Smith recently, Sansom was confronted by his former glory: Mens Health had reused his body on the cover of a transformation manual. I looked down and thought: Ive kind of let myself go, he laughs. But Im only two or three months away from getting back into good nick.

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